


Except, of course

by The_Watchers_Crown



Series: Statement Incomplete [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 02:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Watchers_Crown/pseuds/The_Watchers_Crown
Summary: Jon spends the night.





	Except, of course

**Author's Note:**

> Statement Incomplete now posted [in ongoing fic form](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329079).

In the end, Jon finds himself standing in the living room of Martin’s flat.

As it turns out, neither Martin nor himself have any specific thoughts on what to do or where to go after dinner; this, surprisingly, is integral to their night not being over. For a little while they walk around Chelsea, idly debating what they ought to do next, and then Jon looks sidelong at Martin, at the smile settled onto his face, and says, “Do you want to go back to yours?”

Martin’s eyes widen. He must have said the wrong thing. He usually does. The way things ended with Georgie was proof enough of that. (Except, of course, he hadn’t thought that his own fault at the time.) But this is Martin, and he really does intend—or hope—to do better. There’s a chill coming into the air. They’re also still walking, though Jon couldn’t say where they’re going. Martin has yet to respond; he looks thoroughly tongue-tied, and Jon is something awful at rescues, but this one he thinks he can manage.

He says, “It was only a suggestion. Maybe there’s a film showing.” He doesn’t particularly care for going to films. He just wants Martin to find his way back to the English language, and a more mundane suggestion seems as good an attempt as any.

“No.” Martin shivers under a sudden gust of wind. He steps closer to Jon, who’s grown busy taking in the way his hair blows about. “We can go back to mine. I just…” He trails off.

“Didn’t expect me to ask?” Jon offers.

“Right,” Martin says. Jon likes the look on his face, which is certainly still a smile, but it’s changed in a way he can’t match to words. “But let’s do that, yeah.”

And then there they are, in a flat that smells strongly of the ocean, and also of tea, Martin fumbling to get the lights turned on. Jon has never been to Martin’s flat, nor thought about being in Martin’s flat, and his first thoughts in the dark are about Martin being trapped here without power, in the dark, just like this, for thirteen days. His stomach turns. (Except, of course, it hadn’t done then.) _Bloody relief if you ask me._ That’s what he’d said while Martin was here, stuffing fabric under the door to stop Prentiss’ worms getting in. _Bloody damn relief._ He’s not going to apologize again—largely because he thinks Martin might actually shout at him—but he does find Martin’s hand and squeeze. “You’re braver than you think you are.”

Martin says, “I’m not, really, but I’d like to be,” and then he finds the lights. “I’m sorry for the mess.”

The living room really is a mess. There are half-full boxes everywhere, and belongings strewn about that look as though they were meant to land inside of them and Martin couldn’t be bothered to stop and make up for his abysmal aim. Jon says, “Are you going somewhere?”

“Trying to.” Martin makes a half-hearted attempt to clear up some of his clutter, dropping a book into one box and a pair of shoes into another. “I’ve been looking for a new place. I can’t sleep here. It’s sort of…too much.”

Jon nods understanding. There’s a reason—multiple reasons, more likely—that they were both in the Archive this morning. He doesn’t need Martin to explain himself. A decision settles into him. “I’ll help you pack.”

Martin laughs, and it relaxes Jon a bit, more than he would expect. “You don’t have to do that. You’re my guest, you’re my—we can do what you like.”

“I invited myself over,” Jon says briskly, walking toward the couch, where there’s a line of boxes, some with nothing in them, “and I want to help you pack. You shouldn’t have to stay somewhere that you’re afraid of.” He doesn’t miss the irony of this; he’s afraid of the Archive, and he knows Martin is, and leaving…well. The Archive might have them caught, but this flat is a much more manageable foe. With the Archive they’re rather out of their depth; this much, he knows they can do something about. “Tell me where to start.”

“Oh, all right, if you’re sure,” Martin says. He directs Jon around the living room; poorly thrown items find their way into boxes, and boxes find their way off of the couch. Jon fills one of them with composition books full of poetry; Martin looks mortified when he opens one of them, so he closes it again, having only read a few lines. He doesn’t _think_ those lines were about him, though his eyes are the right color.

They spend an hour this way, working in a near-silence more comfortable than Jon might have imagined; the room looks much better when they’ve finished with it. Jon gazes over their progress with a growing sense of satisfaction. Something has been done. It’s not a lot, but it is something. Compared to how much nothing he’s achieved lately, it feels immense. He turns to Martin, who’s standing several feet away with his hand atop a box, and says, “What’s next?”

Martin, staring down at the box as though it might have answers to as yet unasked questions, looks up. He says, “God, Jon,” and he laughs, and he crosses the room and Jon expects the kiss, but somehow it still strikes him as a surprise. There have been plenty of kisses today, quite a few more than Jon has previously begun a relationship with; this one is…not harder, not wetter, not deeper, and somehow it is more. It is, he thinks through a haze, more of Martin.

“You’re welcome, I suppose,” Jon says after, with his cheek to Martin’s chest; he likes the thundering heartbeat behind his ribcage. “I’m assuming that was a thank you.”

Martin laughs again—snorts, more accurately—and wraps an arm around Jon’s back. He’s careful about it, seemingly unsure of whether or not he’s allowed. Jon, for all his misgivings about trusting his associates, relaxes into it. There’s some amount of trust in being here at all. It can’t have been _Martin_ , of all people. (Except, of course, it could have been.) Martin is _safe_. (Except, of course, Jon can’t be certain.) Martin is now his boyfriend. (Except, of course, one does not preclude the other.) Martin is speaking, and he should probably be listening. “—d’you want to stay over? I don’t mean—” Jon leans back to see Martin’s face, currently and unsurprisingly gone scarlet, and tries not to look amused. “—we don’t have to—I just thought maybe it’ll be easier to get some sleep if you’re not alone? But maybe that’s too much, yes, I’m sure it’s too much, I—I’m going to go and fix us some tea.”

He scurries away before Jon can respond.

 _If tea solved as many problems as Martin would like,_ Jon muses. He follows the sound of cupboards and drawers to a somewhat claustrophobic kitchen, by far neater than the living room; there’s not really the space for any kind of mess. Martin is at the stove, muttering to himself too quietly for Jon to hear, but he catches “damn” and he catches “stupid”; he leans on the nearest wall and says, “Will your bed fit two, or were you offering me your couch and a duvet?”

Martin stares at him.

“That was a joke,” he says. “If you’re not sure. I’d like to stay.”

“Okay,” Martin says, and the high, happy note in his voice is another thing Jon cannot match to words. “Good, that’s good.”

The bed, when it comes to it, is on the small side, but it fits two, barely. Martin lends Jon a pair of gingham pyjamas, and Jon folds his own clothes to leave on a chair. He hopes nobody makes the observation he’s just worn them; Tim and Sasha are both perceptive enough.

Jon hasn’t shared a bed with another person in—to put it lightly—a long time. He isn’t sure that he remembers how to do so, but supposes, as he slides beneath the sheet, it’s one of those things that must come back to you. It’s still early, the alarm clock says, but the hour has little meaning when neither of them have gotten adequate sleep in days, weeks, possibly months. Probably months. Good lord.

Martin turns the light off, and it is dark enough to sleep, and that is what matters. Neither of them says “good night”; there’s only the sound of their breathing. They lay in the dark, Jon on one side of the bed and Martin on the other; it comes as a surprise that there is room for them not to touch each other.

Martin breaks the silence. “D’you want to come here?”

Jon doesn’t know the right words to answer that, so he forgoes them entirely. There’s not far for him to go, just the spare few inches between them. It takes them a bit of maneuvering to find a satisfactory position, and then he is, simply put, cuddling with Martin. With his head tucked under Martin’s chin, he says, “Martin.”

“Hm?”

“You’re—the scars don’t put you off?” It’s not really the most important question, but he can’t ask that one without rather ruining the moment. This one has the same potential; it’s equally likely to tell him something he’d rather not hear, though its scale is a less catastrophic one. (Except, of course, that depends on where you’re standing.)

Martin is quiet for a long time. Jon wishes he hadn’t asked. He should have just gone to sleep. When Martin eventually answers, Jon can hear him frowning. “The scars don’t mean anything to me, except that you survived. I’d have you with more of them s’long as it meant you were _alive_.”

Jon wants to kiss him; instead he does his best to wrap more tightly around him, and says nothing, and closes his eyes, and listens to Martin’s mumbled, “I think you’re gorgeous,” and thinks that he doesn’t deserve any of this. Martin holds him closer, and Jon thinks, too, that Martin understands his quiet.

It’s the most restful sleep Jon has had since the corpse in the tunnels, and perhaps he is sleeping with a murderer.

(Except, of course, it makes little difference.)

**Author's Note:**

> Now that I've written this day literally beginning to end...I'm probably time-skipping for the next of these.


End file.
